Sara’s Kitchen, a training kitchen for adults with learning disabilities as well as a working café, at the Kennedy Leigh Family Centre in Hendon, is the “perfect tribute” to charity campaigner Sara Morein, after who it is named, according to her husband David.

David Morein and family member

Our Chief Executive Elaine Kerr officially opened the cafe on Tuesday, 30 January. The brand new facilities were made possible by the extraordinary fundraising efforts of Food For You, a North-West London based charity set up by a group of female Jewish friends and family in 2004 ,who are well-known in the community for their philanthropic acts.

Committee member Sara Morein sadly died in 2015 and the remaining members decided to release Simply Food For You, their fifth cookbook, in her honour, with the proceeds going towards the exceptional new facilities for Norwood.

Food For You committee member Susie Kahn said: “The book was incredibly well received, which we’re all very excited about. We’ve sold around 1,500 copies already and some of the recipes have now become home staples for people, which is great.

“The refurbishment of Sara’s Kitchen has been remarkably efficient, with it all happening very quickly. So today is very exciting, and also emotional obviously. Sara was so loved by us all and we really feel she would have been proud of what we’ve done,” continued Susie.

Sara’s husband David Morein was at the event and said: “For her this would have been the perfect tribute to her memory, it’s fantastic. It encapsulates two of Sara’s main passions: a love of preparing delicious food and a genuine care and interest in helping others. My only sadness is that Sara had to die for all this to happen.”

Elaine Kerr said that working with the Food For You committee “felt like a coming together of minds”.

“I really hope that the kitchen serves the memory of Sara, who meant so much to so many people, and that that the people who go through the training here experience the joy in food preparation and learning that has been inspired by Sara and her own life.”

Our Kennedy Leigh catering training manager Mariette Mensah is also enjoying the new lease of life afforded to the café through Food For You’s incredible efforts, as are her trainees.

Roberto, Dolyanna, Michael, and Mariette

“It’s been an amazing process, very rewarding and exciting,” she said. “At the moment we now have facilities to make hot food, which has made a huge impact to everything that we do. We can teach people to make dishes like soups and quiches, and also we’re busier as a café because we can serve hot meals. The people taking the training are very excited. At first they were a bit nervous because change can make people nervous, but now they’re really enjoying it.”